冥王星的真实色泽

2024年1月28日

Pluto in True Color
Image Credit: NASA, JHU APL, SwRI; Processing: Alex Parker

Explanation: What color is Pluto, really? It took some effort to figure out. Even given all of the images sent back to Earth when the robotic New Horizons spacecraft sped past Pluto in 2015, processing these multi-spectral frames to approximate what the human eye would see was challenging. The result featured here, released three years after the raw data was acquired by New Horizons, is the highest resolution true color image of Pluto ever taken. Visible in the image is the light-colored, heart-shaped, Tombaugh Regio, with the unexpectedly smooth Sputnik Planitia, made of frozen nitrogen, filling its western lobe. New Horizons found the dwarf planet to have a surprisingly complex surface composed of many regions having perceptibly different hues. In total, though, Pluto is mostly brown, with much of its muted color originating from small amounts of surface methane energized by ultraviolet light from the Sun.

Tomorrow’s picture: stars versus dust

冥王星的真实色泽
影像提供: NASA, JHU APL, SwRI; 影像处理: Alex Parker

说明: 冥王星的真实色泽是什么？科学家颇费了一些功夫才获得答案。纵然新视野号宇宙飞船在2015年掠过冥王星时，回传了大量的影像，但要处理这些在摄于多波段的影像，以近似人类的肉眼之所见，是件很有挑战性的工作。在新视野号取得原始数据的三年后，工作的成果如这幅主题影像所示，同时它也是至今冥王星最高分辨率的真实色泽影像。影像中，可见到淡色的心形汤博区，而西半球则是意外平滑由氮冰覆盖的史泼尼克高原。新视野号发现这颗矮行星，具有由色泽略有差异的多个区域组成之复杂表面。不过整体来说，冥王星近乎棕色，而它暗沉的色泽，主要来自被太阳紫外光催化的少量表面甲烷。

明日的图片: stars versus dust